Another one from New York:

 Like I said not long ago, I've had all kinds of incoming packages. Here is another one from New York.

Greg mail me a bubble mailer full of Braves. I sorted out the ones that I needed per Greg's instructions if I still need any. I needed these. Big highlights on the three mini's in the middle. And The two buybacks, although I am betting that I have the Capra at least I am pretty sure that I do but have placed it in the wrong year in the binders. We'll see. Thanks Greg.

Later this week I'll hit up the return from an OCTer. Remember those 152 PWE's I mailed out? I got a return.

Have a great night!

New York New York all the way to Venezuela

 I spent the entire weekend marking cards off of my want lists, inputting them into TCDB, and of course scanning. The entire weekend (plus). I finished this morning and I started on Thursday night. The task will be to get them into binders. 

First up tonight is a package I've had for a couple of weeks now. It journeyed its way to me from New York courtesy of Bo. I started to refer to him as Bo Man, but I didn't want to confuse anyone with Bowman. Up top is a 1966 Topps Venezuelan Braves card I needed followed up by a card that I thought I had (TCDB said so too). However, I am believing now that it was the chrome version that I had. We'll see once I get into the binders. Purple parallel need closes out the needs, there were several others that didn't clear the fence. Thank you Bo. I'll find a return eventually just don't let me forget.

Next up is another E-Bay win. I won two auctions recently, but the other one is going to wait for anothe rday.

US183, closes out my 2012 Topps & Update sets. The last card before this one was the Trout. Funny story about the 2012 base set (series 1 & 2). Back in 2013 when I started this blog and rekindled the baseball card flame I stumbled upon Dave and Adam's cardworld. They were pushing the factory sets for $5.00. Yep, $5.00 and I bought one. They must have had a ton cases and cases of the stuff. I forget what else I got that day, but I remember that set. I know that I got free shipping too. Nowadays, D&A must still have a ton of those 2012 sets but now they want like $60.00, lol. To get free shipping now you have to spend $199.00. I don't think I have bought anything from them in close to 5 years. Their pandemic pricing is still way up there and I ain't buying even though I check their site about once a month. I sure do miss those clearance sales which is what I was always purchasing. Yeah, no way am I paying those prices. 

Next up is a little story too. The day before leaving for that Orlando trip, I had an itch to rip. I went to Walmart to get some items for the trip and hit up the card aisle..... no I didn't buy any blasters, but I did grab a handful of fat packs that had been marked down to $5.00.

Grabbed a few Big League and Chronicles and was rewarded by doing so. Now I'm sure the Jasson Dominguez relic doesn't cover what I spent, but it definitely bought me another week on the itching. Last week after returning from trip I hit up all the card sites including D&A, and lastly I found something from Blowout cards that would satisfy that itch.

An entire case of some Star Wars set (Resistance) that I knew or at least think that I didn't have. I'll post about that rip in the next week or two.

The first thing that caught my eye over there was these Wacky Packages. For some reason I thought those were different from the ANS 7 that came out in 2010. They were not. At least now I have the cereal boxes, and got a whole bunch of inserts and some parallels that I didn't have. Two boxes (a set) were $9.77 so I grabbed two deals of them. I had fun and scratched my itch real good this weekend. I'll post those new to me stickers in a week or so as well.

That covers and clears some scan files for sure. Everyone have a great night!

2024 Donruss: Not really disappointed.

 I am definitely getting posts stacked up. I have a couple of incoming blogger packages that I will be nipping in the bud this week. I also got an order this past weekend from Blowout Crads: non baseball, but should be fun RIPS. notice the "S" as in I grabbed a CASE of cheap Star Wars stuff (16 boxes) and 4 cereal boxes of 2010 Wacky Packages.  I also have another Ebay post to cover, as well as TWO posts from a ComC order that wasn't due to arrive until September, but came in this past Thursday. Speaking of Thursday, I went to Ormond to Kyles card shop (KnT). I'll have a bunch of posts (4 or 5) from that haul too not counting the one tonight. I will be requesting my Sport Lots inventory box real soon too. 

As my usual when going to KnT I hit up the dime boxes. There were 42 monster boxes which equates to roughly 120,000 cards. Mike (works there) tried to sell me all of them for $800.00 I said no way. He came back with another offer to sell them to me for $550.00. Again, I said no! Instead, I dug through all 42 boxes (it only took me 2 hours and fifteen minutes). That is SUPER FAST! They are sand bagging the newly released Topps Chrome. Maybe I'll hit them up again in a couple or three weeks. I did wind up pulling enough cards to fill 1 monster box. Including everything you see here tonight. With that said I paid roughly a penny a piece for the cards in that box. 80% were 2024 Donruss, 22' and 23' Chrome Platinum. 

As the post title states: I am not totally disappointed with the Donruss release this year. By now we are all adjusted for knowing that there aren't any "current players" on the checklists anymore. The design is good, sure the no logo thing will always be the main issue but the player selection and photo selection was still good and a huge plus NO VARIATIONS THIS YEAR. A 200 card set with 100 main cards and then 100 rated prospect cards (pretty much the same as Topps does these days). I'll let you guys make your own determination. As I pulled TWO near sets one missing 4 cards, and 1 missing 5 or 6 cards plus some extras and inserts too. 

Normally I wouldn't be posting this set until it was complete, however 4 cards short no biggie let's do this!

That is the only scan of the backs until the last scan (the rated prospects).

This set kind of gives me a late 90's Score feel, crisp and clean. Large print and I like that! The first half (100 cards) is really what I mean as the Rated Prospects gets a little I don't know..... too much I guess in that those remind me of I think 2021 or one of those recent sets.

My first set build need is #125. A Braves player Waldrep (I have already ordered 1 to COMPLETE my team set.

THE 2ND MISSING CARD IS ONE OF THE BIG ONES (Elly was too but I got that one). Paul Skenes #131.

Missing #136 Crews.

The last missing one IS ALSO ONE OF THE BIG ONES. JACKSON HOLLIDAY #184.

Here you get a shot of the Prospect backs which are basically the same as the main card backs. Overall I still like the set, love the fact that there doesn't appear to be any of those crazy variations, and best of all I can READ the names and card numbers. I will cover the inserts from this set in one of the upcoming posts mid week.

Have a great night everyone!

 

Disney trip: Day 2....Animal Kingdom

 My brother and I finally won 1st place at the new trivia place (started in February here). It all came down to the final/championship question which is the usual. You can bet nothing or up to all of your points which is what we did as we were in 3rd place heading into that one question. Name the G7 countries. Got it as did 4 other teams that also doubled up, but none of those that were ahead of us. My brother is very happy. Trivia is his thing.

Going to get right at it for the day two activities (Saturday). Started the morning grabbing breakfast off of the resort. My daughter likes trying new places to eat, which is actually limiting because my grandson only eats a few things period. Pancakes, Waffles, cheese pizza, some pasta, and chicken. Doesn't matter the meal as those are the only foods he eats. Now I wouldn't allow such things, but Hunter does. She picked out a place called Maple's. They had chicken and waffles and that is what both of them ate. I had bacon and eggs with hashbrowns and a biscuit.

Yes, the little guy ate it all. With that said, the resort also had chicken and waffles or Mickey pancakes which is what he had Sunday. Love that expression.

Hopped on the bus to head over to Animal Kingdom. He was supposed to leave the Buzz at the hotel.

The thing that Elijah wanted to do the most was go to the "mountain". It is actually a scary roller coaster ride(with a Yeti inside) and he fell one inch short (I am thankful). I should say that when we got back to the resort after breakfast and we were walking from the parking lot I knew my back was going to be an issue, more so my hips. I rented a scooter inside the park. Turned out to be a great idea!

Elijah was a little pissed off because he couldn't go inside the mountain, but he got over it. The next thing we did was hit up the basically a live musical of Finding Nemo. The "gate keepers" decided to not just put us in the "Lightning Lane", but put us at the front of it... Super cool! No waiting! I didn't take pictures inside because they said not to, although some people didn't follow the rules....I did!

E loves dinosaurs, they rode this ride a couple of times back to back. My daughter is having a ball because she let the little guy control the tilt. Look at her face.

After the triceratops it was time for an ice cream and something to drink. He had just bitten off Mickey's ear when I snapped the pic. Then we found a place to eat you guessed it....chicken strips. Hunter wanted to do the Safari all the way across the park. The line was long when we got there and no bump there. Shucks!

Scooped up Elijah while we were still in line for a quick pic.

Lots of animals throughout the Safari ride (those animal pics are on my daughter's phone). I had this one. After spending the day (5-6 hours) we headed back to the resort so they could do homework (2 days worth), eat dinner and hit up the pool before bed. Their bedtime, not mine.

I knew that I would be heading back out once they were in bed and planned to get some pics of the Fireworks this time. I got there early and noticed that on the lake were tugs pulling lighted displays before the boom boom time.

The colors on the water were good. I was switching back and forth from photo and video, and overall my pics and vids sucked. I'm sorry.

Had to get a closer shot with the ferry coming in from Disney.

We had breakfast at the resort (it was so much cheaper there than at the parks and about the same as the cost eating away from the resort).

Tried to get the little guy to pose for a pic by the fountain, but he was more interested in getting to the pool. We were going to head over to Hollywood Studios after checking out, but decided to chill in the pool and then get home earlier than planned. We were all wiped out including me even though I did the scooter thing the day before.

This shot was easy.... poor bird lol.

Well folks that was the 3 days/2 night trip away from home for his birthday (which is actually this Friday). It was a good trip although I believe he would have had a whole lot more fun in a few more years from now. With Hunter graduating this summer, she changed jobs (she worked with children with autism until last week. She started her new job (now a behavior specialist) at the very Elementary school she and her sisters attended. I wish her well (and praying for her). Maybe an adjustment moving from one issue to ALL issues, and so many kids in one place. She now has a State retirement plan and benefits which are pretty good even though the salaries in Florida for school workers teacher's included are not. Wages here were never really an issue because everything here was proportionate....That is except for the last 3+ years. Now, it is a big deal. Housing is 4x higher than it was just 4 years ago, food is up just like it is everywhere, and utilities are up 50% with those dang companies pushing for two more 50% bumps. Lord I hope our State leaders shoot them down. I miss my $50.00-70.00 electric bills (2 months would actually hit a hundy.... August and January). I know that sounds crazy low to most of you folks, but that is what it was until last year. I take that back, while I was in Georgia, my daughter would run the a/c constant even when not home and that would keep it near a hundred to 150.00. I run my heater 7-8 months out of the year and could avoid that 3 digit utility bill except for Jan. Not anymore. 

No idea how I got on that rant, I do know that the hottest month is coming in a week. Stay cool everybody and stay hydrated :).